The Darkest Winter Page 4

  Tired of my mask rubbing up against my face, I tugged it off and scrubbed my hands over my head. In the back country it took time to get everywhere and emergencies had to wait until someone could arrive on site, and all the driving was wearing on me. Now I had this to worry about. “Fuck,” I groaned and leaned my head back against the seat rest. I needed to compose myself before I called Hannah. I needed to figure out if I would go home and what I would tell her if I couldn’t.

  I took a swig of cold coffee, though I didn’t need it. My body wound tight, my adrenaline kicking in. Whatever was happening wasn’t a common cold that plenty of liquids and some rest would cure. People were dying from this and suddenly were in quarantine and it might already be too late. While everyone else was warned to stay indoors, hyper vigilance could be my death sentence, and Ross’, for that matter[SF4]. We’d been on patrol for nearly twenty-four hours, since we got the call at the dinner table. My lasagna was still on my plate when we headed to the department for bullet-proof vests and masks.

  “All units—” I glared at the radio. “10-19 for a 10-10 in progress. Lasson Street in Eagle River. Tango three is on the way, requesting backup. Caller is advising that there’s a 12-gauge shotgun and 2200 on the premises.”

  I was only ten minutes away, but for the first time, I hesitated to answer the call. I had to make the split decision to risk getting sick or worse, or not and be the cause if an innocent was injured or killed.

  As I reached for my radio, my cell phone rang, vibrating and screaming at me from my pocket. I watched a truck speed past me and brought the phone to my ear. “Ross—what’d he say?”

  “Mr. Mitchell? This is Nurse Crawford at the Emergency Clinic.”

  My breath caught in my throat. Hannah. “What it is—what’s happened?”

  “Your wife was admitted thirty minutes ago.” The nurse’s voice was raspy, like she was winded. “She’s in surgery.”

  “The baby?” I could barely speak as my mind spun with dread. She still had a few weeks before she was due.

  “Mr. Mitchell . . .” Nurse Crawford paused. A pause that implied impending bad news. “You better get down here.” There was a crash on the other end of the line, a chaos of mutterings back and forth that drew closer. “Take him to room two-seventeen, through there!” she commanded, and then we lost the connection.

  “Hello?” I shouted into the phone. “What the . . .” My mind raced as quickly as my heart pounded, and I threw the truck into drive, fishtailing on the slick road as I turned toward the city.

  A vice grip cinched the inside my chest as my worst fears became reality. The roads blurred, and I wiped the tears from my eyes as I pressed the petal down as far as it would go.

  Hannah would be fine—Molly would be fine.

  I just needed to get there.

  Chapter 7

  Jackson

  December 9[LP5] [LL6]

  I barreled through the hospital doors of the emergency room, passing a sea of injured bodies that filled the waiting room, ignoring the stench of body odor as I hurried to the glassed-in front desk. The haggard woman at the counter eyed me up and down, taking in my uniform. “Can I help you, officer—”

  “My wife,” I rasped. “Where’s my wife—Hannah Mitchell?”

  The woman’s dark eyes fell, and she nodded down the hall. “She’s in surgery, Mr. Mitchell. She had an accident.”

  My knuckles whitened against the counter. “An accident?” She was supposed to be warm and at home in bed. I turned for the double doors that separated everything else from the waiting room.

  “You can’t see her right now—”

  I was already rushing down the hall. It was a small clinic, probably a staff of ten at most, and the place was inundated. People were everywhere, the scent of sickness permeating the room. I didn’t care and they couldn’t stop me.

  I burst through the electronic doors, glancing fervently between the three closed doors. An accident meant something bad happened, and there were problems.

  “Hannah!” I called, even if a voice told me she couldn’t hear me.

  “Sir!” the nurse called.

  I peered through the window in the first door. An exposed, dark-skinned foot was all I could see, but it was enough, and I ran to the next door. I peered through the window, at the discarded, bloodied sheets. Someone had died in there, or was dying. But when the nurse moved out of the way, I saw polka dot slippers stained with blood discarded on the floor.

  Air rushed from my lungs, and my heart froze in my chest. A wave of disbelief washed over me, taking with it every determined shred of hope I’d brought in with me.

  Another scrub shrouded person moved around the table. Blood soaked the sheet covering the mound of her stomach.

  “Sir—you can’t be in here, sir.” The nurse tugged on my arm, but I couldn’t pry my eyes from her. Was she still alive? Was the baby dead?

  “Sir—”

  “That’s my wife!” I growled, glaring at her.

  The nurse swallowed. “I know, but if you want her to live, you can’t distract Dr. Fines. “Please,” she said, gesturing toward the waiting room. “I will tell you what I know.” Her voice was calm and practiced. But I wasn’t like all the other husbands and fathers she’d talked to before. That was my wife and my child, and I did not understand. “They said there was an accident—”

  She gestured toward the waiting room again. “I know this is hard, and I’ll explain to you what I can.”

  What was Hannah doing out on the roads in the middle of the night, anyway?

  I glanced inside the operating room, at the nurse peering over at me. Hannah needed their attention, and I was only hurting her by standing there.

  The severity of what was happening became a whirling tornado of uncertainty. “Right this way,” she murmured.

  Tears blurred my eyes as I followed her back out with the others. I listened for the creak of the operating room door and the doctor to run out and reassure me everything would be okay, but the door never opened and the doctor never came. And I knew in my gut that nothing would ever be okay again.

  “There was an intruder,” the nurse explained, resting her hand on my arm.

  I frowned. “A what?”

  “Someone broke into your home—”

  “A looter?” Dispatch had been flooded with reports all night.

  The nurse shrugged. “I’m uncertain. An older man brought her in—Mr. Hutton.” Whether it was a courtesy extended because I was a Trooper or because I was a distraught husband, I wasn’t sure, but the nurse handed me the intake report.

  Neighbor heard a scream and gunshot. Ran next door and found the victim on the kitchen floor. She was barely conscious and holding her stomach.

  I dropped the clipboard, and it crashed down onto the linoleum. I couldn’t read it. I couldn’t bear it.

  “He called 9-1-1 when he found her, but there was so much blood he brought her in himself.”

  The nurse’s words were like distant horns, blaring and soft at the same time. They echoed through my head as I imagined Hannah scared and in pain, alone in our house—our home.

  “Mr. Mitchell,” the nurse said tentatively. My gaze drifted to her. “The intruder shot her in the abdomen . . . She lost the baby.”

  I stumbled to the side table in the waiting room and lowered myself down. “No,” I said, shaking my head. Molly ’s room was nearly ready and her clothes were picked out for the drive home.

  The automated doors opened with a click and the doctor strode out. His face mask was resting under his chin like he could barely be bothered to come out and speak with me as he pulled one bloody glove off, then the other. His eyes were grayed, and his jaw was a few days unshaven.

  “I’m sorry, there was nothing we could do,” he said unceremoniously. “She’d already lost too much blood and her organs failed.” His words hadn’t even sunk in before the surgeon turned on his heel and hurried back down the hall, too busy to explain anything more. “I’m sorry,
” I heard him mutter and then the automated doors shut again behind me.

  It was like I’d been pitted and hollowed out. I was a vacuous gaping void of disbelief. “I just saw her,” I realized aloud. She’d given me a kiss, told me to be safe, and waved as Ross and I had drove to the station. I shook my head.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. Mitchell—” but the nurse’s sympathetic voice was like air to a nascent fire. “Oh, God. No,” I pleaded and raked my hands over my head.

  Hannah was gone. It didn’t feel real.

  “No . . .” I repeated, standing. The doctor was wrong. He didn’t try hard enough. There was still hope. My legs gave out before I could take two steps and I stumbled back into the wall. The nurse reached out for me, but covering my face with my hands, I slid down to the cold linoleum.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said again, but they were just letters in a word—a sound with no meaning. It was an abyss of emotion unlike anything I’d ever felt before. Gaping. Raw. Empty pain. And yet so full and brimming I couldn’t catch my breath.

  Molly, my little miracle, was gone. She would be spoiled rotten and perfect.

  A woman coughed somewhere in the room and I looked over. A blurry horde of faces stared back at me. I glanced down at my uniform. Blue fatigues that had a meaning once, but I wasn’t a Trooper sitting in a pool of devastation. I was just a man whose world had just fallen apart.

  I peered up at the nurse. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Clearing my throat, I tried again. “Can I see her?”

  “Of course, you—”

  “Hey!”

  A man pushed himself off the far wall of the room. “I’ve been waiting for hours. Am I gettin’ this broken arm looked at or what?”

  “I’ve been here longer!” A woman shouted, but I didn’t care about them and their bullshit problems. “Sit your ass down,” I told him. “Wait your turn.”

  The disgruntled man took a step back, but I didn’t think it was because of the uniform. He frowned, but said nothing more.

  “I need to deal with these patients,” the nurse said softly. “You know where to find her.”

  I took a step past her. “Mr. Mitchell, I’ll give you as much time as I can,” she said, and I looked over my shoulder. “We’ll have to wheel her out if we need the room.”

  I continued walking. Somehow, amidst the indescribable pain, I could also feel nothing at all. Reluctant to open the door—to see what remained of my wife and daughter—I peered in through the window slat and stilled my nerves. I couldn’t leave without saying goodbye. I wasn’t sure I could leave at all, not without her.

  Lowering my head, I choked out a sob before I could bring myself to step inside. With a ragged breath, I stepped over to the curtain, opening it all the way.

  A blanket covered Hannah’s stomach, and a small, infant-sized shape was wrapped in linen on the incubator beside her. I squeezed my eyes shut and stopped at the end of Hannah’s bed.

  Her face was gray and slackened, not like she was simply sleeping but like she’d been gone for hours already. Her lips were less rosy, her skin more ashen, and as she laid there, I feared her as much as I missed her.

  “Baby . . .” The word was only air exiting my lungs as I struggled to breathe.

  Taking her cold hand in mine, I winced and sat down on the stool beside her bed. I couldn’t see her through the tears, but I knew it was better that way as I brought her cold hand to my cheek. “Han, you can’t leave me. I need you baby—” I sucked in a breath.

  Yesterday she was smiling, threatening to give me a haircut when I got home. Now, she would never smile again. She would never touch me, never sleep beside me. Tears dripped down my cheeks, onto her hand and down the soft skin of her arm. Another sob burst from my chest and I rested my forehead against her shoulder. How could I go on without her?

  Chapter 8

  Jackson

  December 9[LP7]

  The phone rang. Then rang again, forcing my mind to stir.

  I wiped the crusted tears from my eyes and cracked my back as I straightened. I wasn’t sure how long I sat beside Hannah or for how long I wept, but at some point, I’d fallen asleep. The fog in my mind hadn’t cleared and the nightmare hadn’t faded. Hannah was still lifeless in front of me, her fingers cool and stiff in mine, and it all came crashing back down on me.

  Biting back out another sob, I rose to my feet, my body yelling at me to stay with her, to never leave her side. But I couldn’t stay in here forever. How long before the nurse came in to take her body? What would I do then? I couldn’t leave her exposed like this any longer, undressed and cold. But she couldn’t feel the cold, I realized. I stared at the pale pink skin of her throat, waiting for her to swallow or give me some small sign that somehow she still breathed.

  That was crazy, though. Her stomach was cut open beneath the sheets, I knew it was. I didn’t need to look, nor did I want to.

  I peered up to the clock above the doorway. Then blinked and rubbed my eyes as I leaned closer. Five hours? I’d been in here for five hours? How had no one come to get me? In the recesses of my mind, I remembered shouting and banging in the hallway that had stirred me from my sleep, though none of it made any sense.

  I dared to look at Molly’s body still swaddled in the incubator. I couldn’t bring myself to step closer, petrified what I might find. I [LP8]needed to get them out of here.

  Reluctantly, I pried my fingers from Hannah, hating that it felt like a final goodbye. With a steadying breath, I leaned down and pressed my lips to her forehead. “I love you so damn much,” I whispered, clenching back another breakdown.

  The phone continued to ring down the hall, grating on my last nerve as it went unanswered. Then it dawned on me. I had two very important calls to make. Han’s mother and father in Hawaii needed to know what happened, and her brother . . .

  The vice grip cinched around my heart again, and I could barely stand the weight of dread heavy against my chest. How was I going to tell Ross his baby sister was dead?

  I braced my palm against the wall. My limbs were heavy with grief and exhaustion, and my mind was a cloud of insecurity, yet when I picked up that phone to make the two most dreaded calls of my life, I had to be the strong one. I had to be their rock.

  I inhaled deeply and cleared my throat. I didn’t bother wiping the tears away as I stepped into the hallway. There were only four people in the small waiting room, but it smelled foul, like too dirty gym clothes in a steam room.

  A nurse I hadn’t seen before attended an older woman with blood on her forehead while another woman vomited in the far corner of the room.

  “Excuse me.” I cleared my throat, voice rusty. “Nurse?”

  “What is it?” she asked, not looking up from the bandage she placed on the elderly woman’s head.

  “Where’s the doctor?”

  “Which one?” She rose to her feet. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter. Dr. Fines left for a family emergency, O’Donnell is passed out in the break room, sick, and I’m not sure about the others.”

  When she finally looked at me, I could see the sickness in her eyes. She looked jaundice, and it wasn’t only exhaustion and overwhelm. The nurse was unwell. The governor’s ESA came too late. I wasn’t one for facts and figures, but I knew it only took one person to infect a colony, history had proven that much. Despite its remote outposts and frozen lands, Alaska was no exception

  I cleared my throat. “My wife is dead,” I said dumbly.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, officer.” She pushed her supply cart over to a little girl sleeping in the last chair. She put the back of her hand against the girl’s forehead and brushed a loose curl behind her ear. The little girl breathed deeply, her throat rattling, but she didn’t wake.

  “What I mean is, she’s still in the operating room with a—my daughter.”

  The nurse seemed to finally see me, really register my standing there, and she looked at me. Her name tag had a photo of her. Penelope Hernandez: Medical Assistant.


  “The doctor said he’d come for her but he never did,” I explained.

  She rose to her feet again, coughing into her shoulder as she straightened. She cleared her throat. “What’s your name?”

  “Jackson Mitchell. My wife is Hannah Mitchell, and she was in here for a gunshot wound to the stomach.”

  The nurse’s brow furrowed, and she shook her head. “I’m sorry about your wife,” she said again, though this time she seemed to mean it. “I don’t want to lie to you, officer. We’re a small clinic, our rooms are full, these people have been waiting to see the doctors for hours, and we’re short staffed. I don’t see it getting better anytime soon. I’m not even sure we’ll be able to function as a clinic by morning. There’s no one to run anything.” Her voice pitched. “We’ve all got it—it’s only a matter of time before—”

  “Before what?” I asked, a new kind of fear gripping hold of me.

  She glanced at the TV mounted on the wall. Two people sat behind a desk, the camera flashing between them. The segment title read: 70 Million hospitalized in two days stokes fear in officials world-wide. Some are coining ‘End of Days’

  “They’re all dying,” she choked out. “They’re not getting better. They say it’s the H1N1/12 sickness.” Her eyes scoured my face, waiting for me to understand. “People aren’t just looting anymore—they’re losing their minds. We’re all going to die—”

  “Hey,” I said as softly as I could. “You’re not going to die.” I wanted to freak out just as badly as she did, but that wouldn’t help any of us. Summoning every remaining shred of willpower I had, I dug deep for what was left of my “calm and collected” veneer and led her to one of the few empty chairs without a trace of unidentifiable fluid on it. “You’re just exhausted—we’re all exhausted. They will figure this out. We just have to hold on a little while longer.” The lies were pouring out of my mouth. “You’ve been at this for hours, haven’t you?”

  She nodded with a sniffle and blew a strand of brown hair from her face. “Yes.”